Interview Series: Inside Scoop from H.R.

 For this segment of my interview series, I wanted to bring in someone from the world of H.R.

Most people who deal with recruiters are going to also deal with H.R.—even though they are two very different types of roles.

Human Resource personnel work within a company and assist with a variety of basic administrative tasks such as Onboarding, Payroll Assistant, Benefits Administrative Work, reviewing resumes, and helping the hiring team.

There is a lot of overlap between recruiters and Human Resources personnel. Typically, when a company has a job opening, the H.R. department is tasked by the higher ups to post a job opening on the company website and then either review resumes or send those resumes to their superiors for review.

As this is such an important topic, and there are so many posts on social media nowadays about how difficult it is to find work---I figured it might be beneficial to our readers to hear the inside scoop from someone who works in the industry.

So, I connected with Melissa D. (we’re leaving her last name anonymous for privacy). Melissa has worked in Human Resources for over a decade—starting out as an assistant while in college and moving between companies ranging from Medical Healthcare to Non-Profit.

Melissa was gracious enough to speak with us about everything from how to interview successfully, to what type of tricks will get you into the company before others.

One thing that happened, unexpectedly, was that Melisa discussed the practice of “fake job interviews” This was not something that I expected to come up, but once Melissa discussed it, I spent more time on this as it is something people are very concerned about.

Career Path Into H.R.

How did you get your first opportunity to work in the H.R. field?

That’s a funny story! I went to college for something unrelated, Gender Studies! I didn’t have any luck finding a job after college--shocker, right-- and so anyway my roommate was working at a medical clinic and she got me a job there as their H.R. assistant.

Did you have any idea what that job entailed?

Not really, but the woman who was the head of H.R was so nice, and she showed me how It worked. It was a smaller company and there was a lot to learn at first. They had about five people in their People Operations department.

Most of what I learned there was about employee benefits, and reviewing applications. That’s what you’re most interested in right? The actual hiring process?

Yes!

So, how that place worked—it was a lot of medical staff. Some were nurses, but most were medical assistants and medical receptionists. Most places now will hire medical assistants because they are a lower salaried position and they can do most of what is necessary. Nurses can go to school online now, so its much easier.

The company hired them mostly from online postings on places like Craigslist but it was normally a friend or referral. That made it easier since there were less interviews and reading resumes.

The worst thing about that place was that people would quit so often, and there was such high turnover that onboarding took most of your time. It was just easier to find someone you knew was looking for work and get them into a role. It eliminated most of the time you were told to look at applications.

It’s Who You Know

How soon did you start out reading resumes and hiring people?

At that first place I started to do that once the main person left. She just moved to another company when they offered her more money and the owners were in a panic. I left after a few months too because they were so disorganized. The payroll department was the worst. But I also didn't want to deal with constant turnover.

Anyway I had to hire medical assistants, medical receptionists, and staff to verify insurance. Most of the people who work in that field are high school graduates who take a training program, but they don't need special training or a license unless you are in a certain type of hospital.

The medical assistants normally would just refer friends to me and I’d have them meet with the manager. The receptionist I could always find a friend or someone I knew since they didn’t have to have any special certification.

It was basically a who you knew way to get hired there. Like how I got hired! Honestly, most people who got jobs there knew someone. It tends to be that way from my experience honestly. At least in medical offices and even in hospitals. I never worked in a hospital, but a few of my friends got jobs there and that was always the way. Those are great jobs because they are union jobs with great pay and benefits.

The Recruiter Fake Out

Have you ever used a recruiter or headhunter?

I didn’t but one place I worked at for a few years always did. The hard to fill positions would always be sent out to the recruiter firms. If we had a job that was a great job, you know easy role with not too much to do—well, someone in-house would always know someone who got that job!

But when the job was really tough—you know if it had a special requirement that you couldn’t fake—then we’d use a recruiter.

I never was the one who worked directly with the recruiters there, my boss was. I remember she was so sneaky! There was a great opening in the marketing department for an executive assistant and she wanted to get her husbands niece the job. Well, she normally would just hire her, but this was for a bigger role and the boss wanted to use the recruiting agency.

So, she ended up using the recruiters to setup a bunch of interviews, but then she and the other person who did the interviews just said they were all a bad fit for the company.

My old boss, she was a real one! Most of the time she didn't even come to work she had it that good. Eventually the boss wound up complaining because they had this software thing installed on her computer and could tell she hadn't even checked her email for like a month, for real!

Did the agency every know?

How would they know? It happens a lot actually. Not in small companies, but when I was at bigger companies, they are more strict about just hiring friends. So what the people do is setup fake interviews, say everyone is bad, then end up finding just the perfect person –who happens to be a friend of family member.

Did you pay the recruiting firms?

I don’t think so, I think they worked on a commission if someone got hired.  Since they didn’t hire anyone it was free work . I don't know how much the recruiters were charging, but I know that since we didn't end up hiring anyone the company didn't have to pay them.

But the firm was paid if it was a real search and we hired someone from them. But if someone in-house wanted to give the job to a friend, well, officially they had to conduct interviews. So rather than post ads on Indeed or something which cost money they’d just line up some interviews with a recruiter and then end up hiring their own person.

This was how most of the medical practices I worked in ran, honestly. There was so much movement and turn over. And people had such different backgrounds. Like one guy had been in prison for something like a decade then he became a lab technician! Another woman was a barista who dated the owner and then she became a practice manager for the owners second location.

Were Any Of The Jobs Even Real?

Sure, they all were. Do you mean did we ever hire people from job postings or something? Yes, sure. It wasn’t always friends and family.

It depends on the place, some places had Craigslist, or Monster. One boss used to use Indeed even though he screamed that the people never showed up for interviews.

Honestly, it was just easier, you know? If we had an opening in the department and someone’s friend wanted the job, it was just easier to hire them.

Because if you don’t, you’ll cause bad blood. One time we had this woman who was a nurse and she wanted her son to work there. He was such a bum, oh my god. This guy went to Pace (that’s a school in NYC) but he must have just never gone to class.

His mom gave us his resume, he missed like 3 separate interviews and she finally told us to just hire him and he’d show up to work.

Well, that didn’t happen and she got really nasty with everyone and kept calling out or not showing up and working her other job. She wouldn’t quit, though, all she wanted to do was cause trouble for everyone.

In the end you just want to not be bothered. You also save money because posting ads on Indeed or LinkedIn costs a lot, so that comes out of the budget. You look good because you bring your department expense down.

Did You Ever Get Any Pushback From Recruiters When You Never Hired Their People?

Sometimes we did hire them, but as a rule—no, we’d normally have someone already selected. Like I said, in bigger companies there’s a whole protocol about how you have to hire someone and so you have the interviews, you let people be seen. But in the end you already know who is getting the job.

But yeah, some places would get cold on us. I guess they caught on, and since they weren’t making money they just stopped sending us people. But there was always another recruiting firm we could use.

Did Anyone Ever Complain About Fake Jobs?

I wouldn't call them fake jobs, they were real jobs it was just we had to have a process. If there is an opening in the payroll department and someone on the team has a friend who wants the job, we still to follow the process. So, we hold interviews.

Do You Still Use Recruiters and Fake Jobs?

No, I got a degree –my masters—and now I am in a much larger organization and I don’t have to do the small stuff like post jobs or interview people. It’s much more about people and culture. I basically oversee the people who do the onboarding and train them on best practices.

Did You Stay in The Medical Field?

Yes, I was able to get my Masters Degree online so didn't have to go to school in person and my employer paid for it. I interviewed for a few jobs outside of the Medical field, but they didn't interest me. There is much more money in healthcare. So, being a healthcare professional has job security and much better pay.

I'm lucky in that I took advantage of the education and got a advanced degree. Most companies if you work in healthcare will pay for a degree, so it's worth it to stay in the field.